OSCE Negotiators Free One Inspector from Ukrainian Rebels as Separatists Seize TV Station
OSCE negotiators late Sunday walked out of a rebel-occupied town hall in east Ukraine with just one of eight of their inspectors being held as "prisoners of war" by pro-Kremlin separatists, as militants seized a regional TV station in Donetsk.
The two negotiators left the four-story gray building in the town of Slavyansk with the freed Swedish officer.
The three made no comment to waiting reporters before driving away in a white car marked with an OSCE logo.
Negotiations continued for the release of the other seven European inspectors -- from Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark -- and four Ukrainian army officers who were seized with them on Friday, a rebel spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.
She said the Swede was freed first because he suffers from diabetes.
Hours earlier, the rebels had put the eight inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in front of the cameras of a media conference they called in the town hall.
Speaking through one of their number, a German officer, the Europeans asserted their diplomatic status to the scores of local and foreign journalists.
With four armed rebels watching over them as they spoke, the group said they were in good health.
They said they had been captured by the insurgents on Friday around four kilometers (two miles) outside Slavyansk, as they had been about to return to the regional hub city of Donetsk.
"We are OSCE officers with diplomatic status," German officer Axel Schneider said.
"I cannot go home of my own free will."
Schneider added that he did not know the whereabouts of the four Ukrainian officers also detained.
Earlier, the local rebel leader in the town, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, told AFP and a small group of other reporters the OSCE observers were considered "prisoners of war."
"In our town, where a war situation is going on, any military personnel who don't have our permission are considered prisoners of war."
Ponomaryov, who was wearing a pistol in a holster and was escorted by two armed bodyguards, claimed in the same interview that the observers "are not our hostages -- they are our guests."
He added that the group's driver, who had been seized with them on Friday, had been released.
He repeated in the interview that the men would be freed only in exchange for the release by Kiev's authorities of arrested pro-Moscow militants.
And he stressed that the rebels did not consider the detained men part of the main OSCE monitoring mission deployed in Ukraine.
The OSCE headquarters in Vienna has said the military verification mission is a separate operation to its main observer activity, and is under German command.
The pan-European security body said two monitors from its main mission were also held briefly Sunday at a checkpoint in eastern Ukraine, before Ukrainian police secured their release.
Asked about Russia's promise to try to convince the pro-Kremlin rebels to release the observers, Ponomaryov said: "I have no direct contact with Moscow."
Ponomaryov also said that rebels had separately "arrested" three Ukrainian officers -- a colonel, a major and a captain -- who he said had been sent towards Slavyansk on a spying mission.
"There were a total of seven in their group and we arrested three of them. We will swiftly get the four others," he said.
The three officers were being kept in Slavyansk. Ukraine's SBU security service confirmed they had been seized. Russian television showed the men cuffed, with tape over their eyes, and in their underclothes.
The rebel mayor said there would be no negotiation with Kiev over any of the imprisoned Ukrainians because the pro-Kremlin insurgents see the capital's Western-backed government as illegitimate.
"There will be no contact with Kiev, only through the intermediary of the OSCE," he said. Ukraine's authorities, he said, "understand only the language of force".
Slavyansk has become the epicenter of the military standoff in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian militants are defying Western pressure to exit occupied buildings.
The Ukrainian army has set up a siege operation around the town of 110,000 to prevent reinforcements reaching the rebels but has stressed it will take a measured response in its military operations in a bid to avoid civilian casualties.
Later on Sunday, Berlin said Russia has a "duty" to pressure the separatists to free the remaining OSCE inspectors.
"Russia has the duty to influence the separatists so that the members of the OSCE who are being held will be released as soon as possible," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement.
Steinmeier also warned the separatists that publicly exhibiting the OSCE observers and Ukrainian security forces as prisoners was "repugnant and rides roughshod over the dignity of those concerned."
"This is a violation of all negotiating rules and norms that prevail in tense situations like this one," he added.
Steinmeier said Berlin was working with the OSCE to find a solution.
Earlier on Sunday, dozens of pro-Kremlin militants seized the regional television station in Ukraine's eastern city of Donetsk, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
The insurgents, wearing camouflage uniforms and armed with baseball bats and knives, occupied the interior of the building, preventing anyone from entering.
Most wore a red armband bearing the name of the pro-Russian group Oplot (Bastion).
They were not carrying visible firearms, but militants carried several heavy bags inside the building and refused to answer reporters' questions.
The insurgents covered the trident, Ukraine's national symbol, adorning the entrance with a sticker bearing the name of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk Republic."
"The journalists will be allowed to continue to work but they will have to tell the truth," said one militant, who gave his name as Stanislav.
"The Russian channels tell the truth. We demand to have channels in Donetsk that tell the truth," he added.
The station headquarters will be guarded "day and night," added the separatist.
Russian TV channels are banned in Ukraine, where the authorities accuse them of spreading propaganda.
The station's chief later spoke to the several international reporters gathered outside the building.
"Our channels have not yet changed," Oleg Djolos said.
"Our journalists and staff are of course worried but the men who have taken control of our station have pledged to guarantee our safety," he added.
Nearby, six Ukrainian police officers, at least three of whom were armed with Kalashnikov rifles, watched the events unfold without intervening.
Asked about this, Djolos said: "You will have to ask them. They are Ukrainian policemen."
The officers declined to comment to reporters.
"We will come to work at the normal time tomorrow," the director said.
"We are a regional Ukrainian television station. We are not a broadcasting center. The decision to broadcast one channel or the other is not taken at our level."
When pro-Russia protesters took control of the Crimean peninsula last month, backed by Russian special forces, the TV stations were swiftly occupied in similar operations.
Source: Agence France Presse
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